Fifteen Months in Dixie; Or, My Personal Experience in Rebel Prisons

by William W. Day

The father was a coward and incompetent; the son, always cautiously distant from the scene of hostilities, was the tormentor of those whom fortunes of war and the arms of brave men threw into his hands.“

Of his personal appearance I have no recollection, but the above is a true picture of his character. He filled a place in the Confederacy which no brave officer of equal rank would have accepted. Hill, Longstreet, Early, Polk, Hardee, even Forrest and Mosby would have spurned with contempt an offer of assignment to the position occupied by the cowardly John H. Winder.

Of Captain Henry Wirz I can write of my own knowledge. In personal appearance he was about five feet nine or ten inches in height, slightly built with stooping shoulders. He had a small peaked head, small twinkling eyes, grisly, frowsy whiskers, and the general contour of his features and expression of eyes reminded one of a rodent.

In character he was pusillanimous, vindictive, mean and irritable to those beneath him, or who had the misfortune to be in his power; while to his superiors he was humble and cringing, an Uriah Heep; a person who would “Crook the pregnant hinges of his knee, that thrift might follow fawning.”

As a specimen of the contemptible meanness of these two persons, I was told by a prisoner who attempted to escape, but was recaptured and put in the stocks, that while at their head-quarters he saw a large dry-goods box nearly full of letters written by prisoners to their friends; and by friends to them, which had accumulated, and which they had neglected to forward or distribute. The paper upon which some of these letters was written, and the envelope in which it was enclosed had cost the prisoner, perhaps, his last cent of money, or mouthful of food. The failure to receive those letters had deprived many a mother or wife of the last chance to hear from a loved one, or a prisoner of his last chance to hear from those he loved more than life itself.

Wirz was Commandant of the inner prison and in this capacity, had charge of calling the roll, organization of prisoners, issuing rations, the sanitary condition of the prison, the punishment of prisoners; in fact the complete control of the inner prison.

Winder had control of all the guards, could control the amount of rations to be issued, make the rules and regulations of the prison, and had, in fact, complete control of the whole economy of the prison; all men and officers connected therewith being subordinate to him.

Wirz’ favorite punishment for infringement of prison rules, was the chain-gang, and stocks. Sometimes twelve or fifteen men were fastened together by shackles attached to a long chain. These unfortunate men were left to broil in a semi-tropical sun, or left to shiver in the dews and pelting rains, without shelter as long as Wirz’ caprice or malignity lasted. The stocks were usually for punishment of the more flagrant offenses, or when Wirz was in his worst humor.

Just below my tent, two members of a New York regiment put up a little shelter. They always lay in their tent during the day, but at night one might see a few men marching away from their “shack” carrying haversacks full of dirt, and emptying them along the edge of the swamp. One morning the tent was gone, and a hole in the ground marked the spot, and told the tale of their route, which was underground through a tunnel. About 8 o’clock in the morning Wirz came in accompanied by a squad of soldiers, and a gang of negroes armed with shovels, who began to dig up the tunnel. I went to Wirz and asked him what was up. He was always ready to “blow” when he thought he could scare anybody, so he replied, “By Gott, tem tamned Yanks has got oudt alrety, but nefer mints, I prings tem pack all derights; I haf sent te ploothounts after dem. I tell you vat I does, I gifs any Yank swoluf hours de shtart, undt oaf he gits avay, all deright; put oaf I catches him I gif him hell.” Some one offered to take the chances. “Allderights.” said he, “you come to de nort cate in der mornick undt I lets you co.”

The next day we heard that the blood-hounds had found the trail of the escaped prisoners, but that all but one had been foiled by cayenne pepper, and that one, was found dead with a bullet hole in his head. We never heard from our New York friends and infer that that they got to “God’s Country.”